Relationships between gender self-esteem, sexual prejudice, and trans prejudice in cisgender heterosexual college students

ABSTRACT

Our understanding of sexual prejudice, or prejudice against gay men, lesbian women, bisexual people, and other sexual minorities, has improved substantially over the last few decades. Less is known about the factors that predict trans prejudice, or prejudice against trans people. Using the framework of social identity theory, we examined the relationship between gender self-esteem, sexual prejudice toward gay men and lesbian women, and trans prejudice in a sample of 391 self-identified cisgender heterosexual students from a Midwestern university in the United States. Compared to women, men reported more sexual prejudice, trans prejudice, more prejudice toward gay men than lesbian women, and more violence toward, teasing of, and discomfort around trans women than trans men. Whereas both men and women reported more teasing of trans women than of trans men, men reported more discomfort around trans women and women reported more discomfort around trans men. Gender self-esteem significantly predicted sexual prejudice and trans prejudice in men but not women. Consistent with other research, our results indicate that men's sexual prejudice and trans prejudice may be motivated by similar factors, whereas the predictors of women's prejudice may be more specific to the type of prejudice.

KEYWORDS:

• Gender
• gender self-esteem
• heterosexual
• relationships
• sexual prejudice
• trans prejudice

Acknowledgments

The authors thank Elizabeth O'Laughlin and Kevin Bolinskey for helpful comments on earlier drafts. These data are based on the first author's doctoral dissertation. Portions of these results were presented at a meeting of the Midwestern Psychological Association in Chicago, Illinois, on May 5–7, 2011.